Dochosting Data Management

After discovering Dochosting via Contract Journal (see previous post), I have tried to find out more about the company.

The Dochosting website is, to say the least, sketchy on details of the company, giving only telephone and fax numbers (not even an email address!); no postal address or contact names either.

From the STD code of the telephone number, Dochosting appears to be based in or near Chelmsford in Essex – according to Dun & Bradstreet, its registered office is in nearby Steeple Bumpstead, near Haverhill, Suffolk.

From the online ‘brochure’, the DDM system appears to be folders-based and delivered via the web (hosting in London, with a mirrored server in the US available as an additional security option), and DDM also offer drawing scanning and printing services. It has little by way of process management tools – seems mainly to be concerned with file-sharing for small or relatively unsophisticated projects.

Skimming through the FAQs, I learned that charging is by the project, not by the number of files uploaded, with up to ten user IDs created for each project by default. Each project folder can contain up to 1Gb of files (“this is ample capacity in the vast majority of cases,” we are told).

In short, Dochosting is a small-time player in the UK collaboration market – not in the Premier League occupied by the likes of BIW, 4Projects, etc. Probably OK for simple projects undertaken by small teams.

(By the way, the photograph used on the DDM website and on the cover of its ‘brochure’ show a grey-suited, blue-hard-hat-wearing man identical to the man on the left on Business Collaborator’s website home page. Either this man uses both systems, or – more likely – both companies used photo-library images from the same session. What a coincidence!)